HUMANITYVECTOR

US consumer price index, all items · United States · 3 months ahead

2026-11: the model assigns an 80 percent probability to 334.8 to 337.8 index 1982-1984=100

Point estimate 336.3 index 1982-1984=100 from Ridge regression on lags and drivers, against 334.1 index 1982-1984=100 observed in 2026-08. ridge beats last_value on out-of-sample MAE by 61.6 percent over 44 cutoffs (minimum 24, margin 5 percent).

Distribution over the history

Fan chart

60 observed points to 2026-08, then 4 forecasts with 80 percent intervals272.7309.3345.92021-082022-042022-122023-082024-042024-122025-082026-052027-08
Solid: observed (index 1982-1984=100). Dashed and shaded: model point estimates and 80 percent intervals from empirical residual quantiles. Filled dot: the record on this page. Green or red dot: the realised value, inside or outside its interval.
Quantiles
p5 334.5 · p10 334.8 · p25 335.7 · p50 336.3 · p75 337.2 · p90 337.8 · p95 338.8
Source
empirical quantiles of 35 in-window 3-step residuals, in log space; no normality assumed
The record

Immutable fields

Key
us-cpi-all-items:USA:3
Id
29bc6694-fd3c-40e1-a56c-518beef8310a
Created
2026-10-01 00:03 UTC
Data cutoff
2026-10-01 00:03 UTC
Origin
2026-08 = 334.1 (obs 409148)
Target period
2026-11 (92 days)
Point
336.3 index 1982-1984=100
Interval
334.8 to 337.8 at 80 percent
Model
ridge models_v1.targets_v1
Baseline
last_value
Snapshot
9f694e0bfb3b8f8abf6131bbd6c21fe897787f495a3752471a216fc3163d09d6
Data mode
ingested_at
Status
active
Drivers

Statistical association, not causal

Ridge coefficient times the standardised input at the origin, in log index 1982-1984=100. These are associations learned in the training window, labelled as such; nothing here is a causal effect.

FeatureInputCoefContribution
us-cpi-energy[t-3]338.6-0.0004-0.0012
us-cpi-energy[t-1]314.6-0.0004-0.0010
us-ppi-all-commodities[t-3]290.2-0.0002-0.0005
us-ppi-all-commodities[t-1]285.2-0.0001-0.0004
y[t-0]5.810.0002+0.0002
us-nonfarm-payrolls[t-1]158,9130.0001+0.0002
y[t-1]5.810.0001+0.0002
us-nonfarm-payrolls[t-3]158,8610.0001+0.0002
y[t-2]5.810.0001+0.0002
y[t-11]5.780.0000+0.0000
Outcome

Not yet realised

The observation for 2026-11 has not been ingested. The weekly forecast.evaluate job attaches it when it arrives; the record above does not change.

Scenario assumptions

What the forecast takes for granted

  • No structural break in us-cpi between the data cutoff and the target period.
  • The source keeps publishing the series on the same definition; a rebasing or redefinition invalidates the comparison.
  • The lagged statistical associations estimated in the training window hold over the horizon.
  • Driver series used, lagged: us-cpi-energy, us-ppi-all-commodities, us-nonfarm-payrolls. Their own future values are not forecast; only values known at the cutoff enter.
Falsifiers

What would show this forecast wrong

  • If the first published value of us-cpi (USA) for 2026-11 is below 334.8 index 1982-1984=100 or above 337.8 index 1982-1984=100, the 80 percent interval is falsified.
  • The model assigns a 10 percent probability to a value below 334.8 index 1982-1984=100 and a 10 percent probability to a value above 337.8 index 1982-1984=100; interval misses should occur about one time in five over many forecasts, and a run of misses well above that rate falsifies the calibration.
  • The point forecast is above the last observed value (334.1 index 1982-1984=100); a realised value at or below that level falsifies the direction call.
Competing models

Scorecard for this target and horizon

ModelStatusCutoffsMAERMSEDirection80% coverageSkill vs last value
Ridge regression on lags and drivers
models_v1.targets_v1
champion440.92211.27100%64%61.6%
Drift
models_v1.targets_v1
challenger440.94241.27100%66%60.7%
Holt (exponential smoothing with additive trend)
models_v1.targets_v1
challenger441.321.72100%77%44.9%
Last value
models_v1.targets_v1
baseline442.42.690%93%0.0%
Linear trend
models_v1.targets_v1
challenger444.144.9291%55%-72.4%
Seasonal naive
models_v1.targets_v1
challenger4410.4510.860%98%-335.4%
Champion: Ridge regression on lags and drivers. ridge beats last_value on out-of-sample MAE by 61.6 percent over 44 cutoffs (minimum 24, margin 5 percent).
Model card

Ridge regression on lags and drivers

Ridge regression on lags and drivers

Purpose. Point and 80 percent interval forecasts of us-cpi (USA) 1, 3, 6, 12 months ahead. Owner: Forecast Lab (HV 3.0).

Method

A direct multi-horizon ridge regression: the change from the origin to the target period is regressed on lagged target values (lags [1,2,3,12]) and lagged driver series (lags [1,3]), features standardised, penalty lambda 1. Drivers: us-cpi-energy, us-ppi-all-commodities, us-nonfarm-payrolls. Every driver enters lagged, so no feature uses a period after the origin. The series is modelled in natural logarithms and transformed back, so intervals are asymmetric in level terms.

Uncertainty

Intervals are empirical: the model is refitted at earlier origins inside the training window, the realised errors at the same horizon are collected, and the interval is the 10th to 90th percentile of those errors around the point forecast. No normality is assumed.

Training and evaluation

Training window: 955 periods, 1947-01-01 to 2026-08-01. Evaluation: rolling-origin backtest over 44 cutoffs using pseudo real-time data (the earliest ingested value per period; no vintage archive exists for this series, so revisions between the cutoff and today are not reproduced).

Known limitations

  • Structural breaks after the cutoff are not modelled.
  • Driver contributions are statistical associations, not causal effects.
  • Promotion to champion requires beating the last-value baseline on out-of-sample MAE by at least 5 percent over the minimum number of cutoffs; otherwise the baseline stays champion.
  • Retraining: every scheduled forecast.run refits on the data then available; backtests re-run from /admin/forecasts.
Version chain

Supersedes

  1. 1edc7e36 2026-09-07 22:16 UTC · drift · 335.7 [333.8, 336.6] · superseded

this version: new data at cutoff